Report from Palestine

Just writing to tell you about one of the things that has made me feel the worst here so far.

I have been staying almost every night for the past 6-7 weeks with the Abu Ayesh family in the Balata refugee camp (more info about Balata here: www.un.org/unrwa/refugees/westbank/balata.html).  Their son Amer Ayesh performed an operation in 1948 near Quaqila 5 months ago in which 3 soldiers were killed.  There are also 2 other families that live in this house.

Several days ago some neighbors had told the Ayesh family that they had seen soldiers looking into the men's room window where me and the two sons were sleeping at about 3 in the morning.  This concerned us and we were ready for soldiers coming the next night, but nothing happened.  The 2nd night all was quiet as well.  It all went bad yesterday night.

At about 2:00 am, Jihad (one of the sons, about 15 years old) woke me up saying "Steve Jeesh" over and over while tugging my leg.  I was walking to to door from the men's room to the main living room and

Your article "Call it What it Is Nazi style propaganda"

Your article, "Call it What it Is Nazi Propaganda reflects a return of barbarism western style based on modern technology and technological warfare with religious overtones, a repetition of past behaviors invasions/missions.

We are departing from what is considered more civilized behavior based on constitutional governments, international law, the UN international treaties and multilateral co-operation and respect..   

A barbaric multinational  corporate tyranny will become the norm if it is not curbed with checks and balances of some type. Checks and balances are being destroyed at all levels by this reactionary approach.

The checks and balances in our Constitution are being dismantled The checks and balances in our ecosystem/biodiversity are being pushed to the limit. The checks and balances within our bodies and within our food chain are to be destroyed (GMO's).

Karl Rove, not a novice, appears to be the master planner of this new "transgenic, technilogical, corporate, nuclear world order." He is unelected, illusive, deceptive and unaccountable.

Forget Arnold, "Blackout Pete" Wilson is the electric terminator

The California media has been whining that Pete Wilson, Arnold's chief press flak, won't let them ask Schwarzenegger any direct questions.

But in the wake of the big northeast blackout, they're missing the boat---it's "Blackout Pete" they should be grilling.  If the policies he enacted as governor of California are any indicator, the Terminator will be destroying a lot more than just the Golden State grid.

Wilson was the Republican governor of California in 1996 when he made utility deregulation the centerpiece of his doomed campaign for president.  Competition in the electric power business, said Wilson, would usher in a new age of lower prices.  The "miracle of the marketplace" would mean better, cheaper, more reliable electricity from a host of competing suppliers.

Deregulation is also the centerpiece of Schwarzenegger's campaign for Wilson's old job.  The Terminator isn't allowed to say much.  But the few short sentences he does utter seem to have something to do with policies that would mirror what Wilson did when he set the utilities free.

Ahnuld, Ken Lay, George Bush, Dick Cheney and Gray Davis

Arnold Schwarzenegger isn't talking. The Hollywood action film star and California's GOP gubernatorial candidate in the state's recall election has been unusually silent about his plans for running the Golden State. He hasn't yet offered up a solution for the state's $38 billion budget deficit, an issue that largely got more than one million people to sign a petition to recall Gov. Gray Davis.  

More impv ortant, however, Schwarzenegger still won't respond to questions about why he was at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills two years ago where he, former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan and junk bond king Michael Milken, met secretly with former Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay who was touting a plan for solving the state's energy crisis. Other luminaries who were invited but didn't attend the May 24, 2001 meeting included former Los Angeles Laker Earvin "Magic" Johnson and supermarket magnate Ron Burkle.  

Power Failure; Bush Disaster

Power disaster hits North America CBC News, Canada

Maybe it's terrorism, maybe it's a problem in the power grid caused by a local Niagara Falls power generation plant.

We Were Just Talking: (Yet ) another conversation about Dennis Kucinich

I was surprised by an email from an old friend, usually apolitical, who wanted to engage me about Dennis Kucinch. While I don't always put my heart into rising to such bait, I was invigorated enough by our exchange to share it with the world:

My friend began:
Danny, I have to ask...if you're intent on dispensing with Bush, why are you backing Kucinich instead of a Democratic candidate with a chance?  I'm not settled on anyone as of yet--I can barely keep track of who's running--but after going with Nader in 2000, I can't stomach going with a beautiful loser Democrat on election day and then watching four more years of Bush.  What are your thoughts?

I answered:

The latest bogus fossil-nuke blackout: this grid should not exist

This is the fourth---and worst---completely unnecessary major regional blackout in this country in forty years, dating back to 1965. 

It's scope---from Detroit to Ottawa to New York and New Jersey---is absolutely awesome, especially since it's due to total stupidity and corruption.

This does not count the blackouts that raged through California in 2000-2001.  Those were "blackmails," set by Enron and the other Bush gas cronies to rip $60 billion out of the state, leading to, among other things, the impending ouster of Gov. Gray Davis.  

When the lights went out, Davis kissed the feet of Southern California Edison's John Bryson, who engineered a deregulation bill that gouged $30 billion out of the ratepayers for the state's failed nukes.  That opened the gates for the gas pirates to steal yet another $60 billion.  Davis got caught in the backdraft.

The culprits in this latest northeastern disaster are basically the same---the barons of fossil and nuclear power and their cronies in the electric utility business.  

Their "weapon" is an ancient electric grid that's obsolete if not obscene.  

ODMR approves permit to undermine Dysart Woods

The Ohio Division of Mineral Resources (ODMR) has approved Ohio Valley Coal Company permit D-0360-12 to undermine all three old growth forest areas of Dysart Woods.  

            While The ODMR claims that there will be no subsidence from this mining, that is an absolute lie based on proven examples of room and pillar subsidence of the #8 Pittsburgh Coal seam throughout Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.  

            Dysart Defenders will appeal the permit, and demands that Ohio University, which owns Dysart Woods, do the same.  

            The Ohio University Ecology Committee, which is made up of a majority of administrators and is the environmental think-tank of OU policy, passed a resolution requesting that OU appeal the permit.  

            OU President Robert Glidden needs to send a strong message that OU will follow its commitment to the Nature Conservancy when it purchased Dysart Woods in 1966 to protect the most significant of the last .004 percent of the ancient forest left in Ohio.  

News Flash: This is not a "Silly Season"

Contrary to media cliches about “the silly season,” this is a time of very serious -- and probably catastrophic -- political maneuvers.

     From California to the U.N. building in New York City to the sweltering heat of Iraq, the deadly consequences of entrenched power are anything but humorous.

     Can you remember watching a movie when some calamity is happening on the screen, and laughter ripples across the darkened theater? You might wonder why people are chuckling at the grievous misfortunes of others. To comfortable viewers, a disaster can seem quite amusing.

     The market is hot for Hollywood extravaganzas that fill screens at multiplexes. The spectacles of high-tech weapons and cinematic bloodshed are experienced as just so much viewing pleasure. The unreality, we’re told, is just for diversion -- people understand the difference between movie posturing and the real world.

     But this summer, news outlets are agog with real-life versions of what could be called “Pulp Nonfiction.”

     Of course there are plenty of assurances that people with power,

SATIRE: Arnold's Three Commandments: Leaked White House Transcript (8)

Bush, Cheney, Rove, Rumsfeld, Ridge, Ashcroft

PRESIDENT BUSH: Alright! Alright! Alright! Karl Rove. You are the man. Arnold Baby in California. You are a GENIUS! I haven't had so much fun since I went AWOL from the Guard. And BELIEVE me, that was a lot of fun.

VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: Karl, you know what a great kidder I am. But I could never have dreamed up this one. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Governor of California.

SECRETARY RUMSFELD: Old Arnold. He's a one-man weapon of mass destruction. He reminds me of Saddam before he got fancy and went with the Euro. God, I miss that guy.

KARL ROVE: Thank you, gentlemen. It was nothing, really. I realized long ago there was just one guy to get Gray Davis out of there. We couldn't run Arnold in the general election. That would mean debates and a long campaign and a lot of media scrutiny. To elect a specimen like Arnold, who is basically a circus strong man, you need, well, a circus.

PRESIDENT BUSH: You know, sometimes I get really moved by the opportunities we all have in this country. Where else but in America could the simple son of

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